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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/25145143">Salinity</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/Liquid_Lyrium/pseuds/Liquid_Lyrium'>Liquid_Lyrium</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman &amp; Terry Pratchett</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Age of Sail, Crowley is a Mess (Good Omens), Crowley is a disaster, Extended Metaphors, M/M, Metaphors, Oblivious Aziraphale and Crowley (Good Omens), Oblivious Crowley (Good Omens), Other, Pining, Prompt Fill, Strong Aziraphale (Good Omens), Tension, Thirsty Crowley (Good Omens), Unresolved Sexual Tension, Unresolved Tension, and rope, incredibly shameless amounts of angelic strength, lads can you call it thirst if you don't even know you're thirsting?, they're on a boat</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-07-08</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-07-08</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-05 02:42:18</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,154</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/25145143</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/Liquid_Lyrium/pseuds/Liquid_Lyrium</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>They never spoke during these moments, and it was no different now. The only sound was rope on skin; the repeated motions had worn a roughness into the places that used to be soft.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Aziraphale/Crowley (Good Omens)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>37</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>82</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Collections:</b></td><td>Ixnael’s Recommendations, Ixnael’s SFW corner, Our Own Side</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Salinity</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Written for the <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/collections/sosh_gta_2">Soft Omens Snuggle House Guess the Author Round 2</a> prompt: NGK and other noises. See notes at the end for nautical terms <s>feverishly googled</s> used in this fic, though it shouldn't be too hard to understand. Absolutely 0 knowledge of sailing or the age of sail is required to enjoy this fic bc I have none myself lol.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p> </p><p>The sun was perfect. Crowley felt this could be taken to be objectively true, and had nothing to do with his own authorship of the stars.</p><p>The heat bore down relentlessly from above, and then reflected back off the Caribbean Sea. It made tempers short and wills weaker. Even the steeliest resolve could melt at the barest pressure of temptation, be persuaded to do terrible things for the mere thought of comfort. Of cool, clear water after hours of hard labor underneath the equatorial sun.</p><p>To a serpent-blooded being who only played at being human it was <em> perfect</em>. He loved weather like this, where he couldn’t even remember what it was like to be cold once in his long life.</p><p>He sprawled out on public display at every opportunity. Along the canons, on the weather decks, but never up top in the crow’s nest or on the yardarms. (There were limits to the heights even he—a serpent-hearted, winged thing—would sleep.) Obscenely lazy and utterly shameless.</p><p>He was never beaten for his sloth, and he <em> knew </em> it only made the crew angrier. Crowley smirked a bit, and he let the rage simmer. Nothing to get humans worked up faster than the idea of <em> fairness </em> and <em> parity</em>. (What a fairy tale—like taxes funding public works!) He was sure the captain would have a mutiny on his hands within a month.</p><p>A cool breeze interrupted his thoughts, a faint soothing caress of air currents that he leaned into, despite his love for the oven-like heat. He opened his eyes and looked at the only possible obstacle in his way.</p><p>The angel was the cool, clear glass of water all men hoped for. Crowley felt his tongue idly flick along his lips, as he suddenly knew (once again) what it was like to be thirsty.</p><p>Aziraphale wore nothing but tan breeches and a pale, open shirt with a plunging neckline that exposed the muscles of his chest as well as the skin between his elbows and wrist. He was strong, and he never complained about doing the work that would have the humans around them suffering in this heat, even though Crowley could see the saline drops gathering and beading along the angel’s skin. He swallowed again, throat desperately dry.</p><p>His skin shrunk painfully tight against the gangly, driftwood bones in his arms; like it was trying to turn back into scales. He always felt a bit on edge when Aziraphale wandered into his field of view like this. <em> Wouldn’t any demon feel this way if an old enemy encroached on all the best lazing places? </em>The Arrangement was alive and well, but old habits die hard, and it felt a little like spying and gathering information the way he felt obligated to monitor the angel. This wasn’t a pleasure cruise, after all. They were here for work, and it wouldn’t be unheard of for Aziraphale to try to sneak in a moral victory or two, here and there, rather than a perfectly even draw.</p><p>The angel lifted the line for the halyard and <em> pulled</em>, all by himself. Crowley watched, intently. His eyes followed the suspension, the <em> tension</em>, and he suddenly wished he was lounging on the yard after all, because it seemed like security. There was nothing surer with Aziraphale at the other end of the lines.</p><p>Crowley felt an uncomfortable coil of certainty wrap around his gut. <em> He could hoist you up like it were nothing. Hitch you fast to a spar with a dozen different knots. Hang you like one of the stars. </em></p><p>Even more certain, less welcome, came the thought—<em>He wouldn’t let you fall. </em></p><p>He watched where fabric turned damp and clung to his skin where the sweat had gathered, as the angel threw his weight against the clever pulleys and leads with vigor, despite the oppressive heat.</p><p>Crowley felt a bead of sweat run from the nape of his neck, down the groove of his spine, disappearing in the seam beneath his sacrum. He felt oddly brittle, like a layer of salt rime left behind on sea-soaked lines set to dry under the hell-hot sun.</p><p>They never spoke during these moments, and it was no different now. The only sound was rope on skin; the repeated motions had worn a roughness into the places that used to be soft. The same way water carves out a canyon over time.</p><p>There was no need for sweat, and no need for strain. It boggled Crowley’s mind as he watched the muscles at work under the angel’s skin. At the sarcomeres woven together to make up the myofibrils there, like the repeating rings of Saturn. At the thin and thick filaments pulling each other like a rope. Actin and myosin.</p><p>“Why d’you do that by hand? You could just miracle it, y’know.” Had he <em> ever </em> had a drink in his fucking life?</p><p>Aziraphale didn’t answer him, just turned and twisted the line into an elegant winding series of loops around a metal cleat, securing it with ease. Crowley felt himself fraying apart bit by bit, like the very ends of the halyard. He could just see the splintering ends brushing the timbers of the deck before it rode upward with another figure eight.</p><p>Aziraphale tutted and drew out a much smaller piece of twine, wrapping it around the end, swift as you like, in a proper whipping knot. Holding it all together.</p><p>Crowley lept up to his feet, no longer remotely relaxed. He’d never been in a state fit to inspire sloth. Not in his entire life. He reeled, like a wind-rode ship in harbor, tethered to the only other creature in all of existence who seemed to be constant in this ever-changing world. <em> Why can’t you leave me alone? Why do you always have to thwart me by just… being you!? </em> That was the worst part of it, really. Aziraphale hadn’t even <em> done </em> anything. Besides setting an obscenely good example of <em> virtue </em> and <em> hard work </em> and <em> dedication. </em></p><p>The angel turned and smiled at him with a brush of his hands (the sound of those calluses dragging against each other was deafening), lit up by the unforgiving sun into a being of unimaginable beauty. His hair blinded like sunlight reflecting off the water’s surface. His skin flushed pink like the inside of a freshly-bitten strawberry from his forehead down to that tantalizing swell of his belly peeking through the deep v of his tunic. The smell of him cut through the salt and pitch and fibers of the deck—oysters, wine, the wet, cool insides split-open plums, all pillowed atop something soft and powdery.</p><p>His eyes were grey and fathomless. No less treacherous than the sea.</p><p>”It’s good work.” </p><p>Crowley’s throat made a noise like yards upon yards of worn fibers twisting together. The sound of jute straining under tension. Thin and thick filaments finally snapping and snarled in a tangle.</p><p>
  <em> Fuck. </em>
</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Some nautical terms:</p><p>weather deck - any deck exposed to the outside<br/>halyard - a rope (usually called a line) used to hoist a ladder, sail, or yard.<br/>spar - a pole used in rigging to carry or support a sail (This includes booms and masts.)<br/>yard- yard is a spar on a mast from which sails are set.<br/>yardarms - the outmost tips of a yard<br/>whipping knot - A whipping knot or whipping is a binding of twine or whipcord around the end of a rope to prevent its natural tendency to fray.<br/>wind-rode - Caused to ride or drive by the wind in opposition to the course of the tide; said of a vessel lying at anchor, with wind and tide opposed to each other.</p><p>If I missed any terms that are unfamiliar let me know and I'll toss them in here!</p></blockquote></div></div>
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